


Nothing Needed To Be Said

by stileskolpath



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e09 The Girl Who Knew Too Much, M/M, Minor Angst, Sad Derek, Sad Stiles, Stiles Helps Derek, all they have is each other, hug it out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 00:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/906943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stileskolpath/pseuds/stileskolpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles finally breaks down and asks Derek if he is okay after everything that has happened one night when they are searching for his dad. They find that words say a whole lot less than they should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Needed To Be Said

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of this post here: http://prettiestalpha.tumblr.com/post/56872827301/i-want-a-moment-between-stiles-and-derek-at-some
> 
> It is included in the actual work itself, but my part begins at the double asterisks (**)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Feel free to check out my other Sterek-related stuff at my tumblr: http://watchthewolvesrun.tumblr.com/
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> -Stiles Kolpath

I want a moment between Stiles and Derek at some point where they’re just working on some calm together, whether they’re just looking over a map together and they’re both really quiet because Stiles wants to ask about everything that’s happened with Erica and Boyd and Jennifer, so Stiles just says “so, are you okay?" and Derek pauses and shakes his head slowly still looking down, then Stiles just frowns to himself and pulls Derek into a slow hug and Derek doesn’t react for a moment before he slowly wraps my arms back around Stiles and they just stand like that for a while saying nothing because nothing needs to be said.

**

It had been a week since the sheriff was taken. It was probably the worst week of Stiles’ life, second only to the week his mom died.

No. He was not going to go there. His dad was not dead. Couldn’t be. They hadn’t found him yet. With all the other sacrifices, they had found them relatively quickly. Not the sheriff. Not yet.

Stiles let that rekindle his hope. It was still a long shot, but at least he could believe it to be true, with his reasoning, logical thought processes.

In the meantime, Derek had been nothing if not extremely helpful. Chris Argent had let them use his map and his desk, where he had been recording his once-secret theories and symbology behind the Darach’s killings. Stiles had never spent more time in the Argent household than that week. And interestingly enough, Chris and Allison even let Derek accompany him.

That was either incredibly gallant on their part, or indicative of the horribly shitty levels of hope they all had of finding the Sheriff in one piece. Either way, Derek was there with him every night, poring over the same maps, symbols, and books that they had been, trying to find something, anything to flesh out as a lead.

They had gone to all the sacrificial locations, filtered out a way to find the node-like beacons of telluric currents, and revisited old locations to prove their theories about the currents. The jeep and the camaro had never seen more mileage than during the nights of the last week.

But for as much as Stiles was worried to the verge of panic, and as much as his frayed nerves were keeping him up at night, he sensed that the normally brooding werewolf that was doing his best to be Stiles’ shadow was preoccupied with other things, to say the least. It was just certain things that gave it away. Derek would be staring at the map under the glow of the black light, trying to see the whole picture, but his eyes were unfocused, staring a hole right through the center of it as he leaned on the desk with both hands. Or when Stiles asked him a question, trying to confirm something or reason out a theory, he would take a few moments to respond, if he deigned to at all.

That was when Stiles realized. He never asked Derek how he was doing since Erica and Boyd. He had been meaning to ever since he had that conversation with Peter a few weeks ago. Ever since he had found out about Paige, and especially since this whole Jennifer-the-Darach thing had happened. So, that friday, when Stiles found himself once again at the Argents’ penthouse, staring at the same maps, while Allison, Isaac, and her father were out surveying one of the last supposed sacrificial locations, he had gone to the kitchen to grab some food for himself and the alpha, leaving Derek posted up over the desk in the center of Chris’s office like it was his job. When Stiles returned, two sandwiches stacked on a small plate in his left hand, he found Derek right where he left him. But instead of glaring at the map like he usually did, Stiles noticed that his head was hung low, and his breathing was coming out in short, jagged cycles. Stiles had silently seen it through the crack in the door, which of course, had creaked loudly when leaned against it, and the human had no choice but to follow through and pretend like he had just come back, and was most definitely not watching Derek’s clearly emotional state. The alpha looked up, quickly hiding whatever had been playing across his face. He briefly caught Stiles’ eye, but then hid his gaze by looking down at the map once more.

Stiles figures it is now or never. “Derek?

"Hm?" It was all the response the werewolf was going to attempt, lest his voice betray him.

"I have been meaning to talk to you…" Stiles trailed off as he walked around to the side of the desk where the alpha was, setting the plate down on the corner. "…about everything." He leaned slightly on the desk with one arm, but faced the alpha, who was side-eyeing him suspiciously. “You have been helping me out this week, and I just don’t feel right being so totally focused on my dad when I haven’t even asked you how you were doing, what with everything going on lately." The alpha eyed him quizzically, one eyebrow raised in question.

He managed one word in response. “Don’t." Stiles’ own heart broke with the sound of Derek’s voice breaking in that one syllable. The human laid a hand on the werewolf’s back, rubbing slow circles on it.

The werewolf shook his head, still leaning on the desk, hanging it between his arms. Stiles heard him try to take in a controlled breath on the backside of a meant-to-be-silent sob, and the sound hurt more than the events of last week had combined.

The human reached under the chest of the quietly crying werewolf, and pulled him up into a slow embrace. He wrapped his arms around Derek’s back, his chin coming to rest on the slope of the alpha’s shoulder. The werewolf didn’t react at first, just buried his head in Stiles’ neck, and began to sob unabated. With each shudder his body gave, Stiles could feel his own tears coming to his eyes, hot and wet as they spilled down his face. He rubbed circles into Derek’s broad back with his palms, trying to squeeze the alpha as tight as he could, to maybe, just maybe, show him that it might be alright. Eventually, Derek’s arms returned the embrace, holding Stiles close, almost enough to take his breath away, but stopping just short of it. It was Stiles’ turn to cry in full force. The tears flowed for his father, for his mom, for Laura, Erica, for Boyd, for Paige, for Isaac, for Allison, Scott, and for himself. Some were even shed for Derek.

Because as much as Stiles was terrified that he would lose more of his friends, or that he was going to lose his one remaining parent, the last piece of his little, broken family, he knew that Derek understood. That the werewolf had lost all of it. Stiles felt it. He could feel Derek’s pain mix with his own, like where a river meets the ocean, different and divided at first, but slowly becoming one over time. Not a word was said between them for a long time, because they weren’t needed.

Because even though they were both losing, or had lost, almost everyone that was important to them, even if they were both hopelessly, heart-breakingly alone as a result, they would be together in that too. Stiles closed his eyes, moving his mouth into the crook of Derek’s shoulder, wrapping his arms tighter around the werewolf’s neck as he thought about it. Derek squeezed the Stiles tighter in response, in understanding. Quietly, they clung to each other in the semi-darkness, silhouetted eerily by the glow of the black light over the desk.

They continued to hold each other even after they had stopped crying, and their tears had dried in salty streaks on their faces, Stiles and Derek held each other, afraid to let go, afraid to separate, because if they did, the human might lose his werewolf, or the werewolf might lose his human.

And that was a pain that neither could bear.


End file.
